The woman by the bar
by Bunnyapocalypse96
Summary: Jack Harkness tries to chat up a woman he finds in a bar, but quickly gets more than he's bargained for.


Jack Harkness entered his usual stomping grounds with confidence. Looking across the bar, he kept a wary eye out for any unattended ladies and/or gentlemen hanging about. He brushed his gaze over the drinking Slitheen, the frolicking Adipose—until he spotted the perfect customer.

A woman who was sitting all alone by the bar counter.

He only had a view of the back of her, but already Jack could see that this one had some potential. Her hair was light and all curls and she was wearing a dark green dress with a deeply dipping back. There was also a certain—danger about her.

Jack liked it. He wondered idly if he was going to be up for a challenge tonight.

He strutted over, all-confidence, to where the woman was sitting. He took the seat right beside her and loudly ordered a good old glass of fire-whiskey. Neat.

Usually, just sitting next to a woman at a bar would be enough for her to strike up a conversation with him, but this particular lady seemed to be caught up in her own thoughts. She barely noticed anyone around her— least of all him.

Jack hoped that he wasn't going off his game.

Though it didn't bother him that much, the knowledge that he kept aging yet couldn't die was an irritating reminder that he wouldn't be able to have his way with people forever. He had to put himself out there while he still had the chance.

He turned to the woman and flashed his widest, most charming smile. True to form, the woman's face was as beautiful as he had expected it to be.

"So, do you come here often?" Jack asked innocently. Then, with a devilish grin, "Because I think I would've noticed if you did."

When used by anyone else, this line usually came off as being unbelievably cheesy, but by this time Jack knew how to get the inflection just right so as to make it the most charming line in the book.

The woman didn't seem very impressed, though.

She fixed Jack with a bored expression. "Do you use that line often?" she countered, raising a daring eyebrow. It was very clear that this was not a woman to be messed with.

Jack shook the comment off with an amiable chuckle and held out a hand. "Captain Jack Harkness," he said with a grin, "And who might you be?"

"You're a Time Agent," the woman said curtly, eyeing the vortex manipulator around his arm, "Well, I suppose that figures."

"What figures?" Jack asked, slightly thrown by the fact that his wiles had seemingly no effect on this woman.

"That you can't take a hint," she said, taking a sip of her drink, "Just like the fact that your agency can't seem to understand that meddling with time can result in catastrophe."

"You sound like a friend of mine," Jack said, dropping his hand and taking a sip of his own drink, "And no, I'm not with the Time Agents anymore. I've seen what meddling with time can cause, and it isn't pretty."

The woman seemed to consider him for a moment, before extending her hand towards him.

"Professor River Song," she introduced herself.

"Pleased to meet you, Professor," he said, taking her hand with a smile, "So, what's a woman like you doing all alone in a place like this?"

River smiled. "Waiting for my husband," she told him matter-of-factly, "He's off doing—oh, I don't know what—with that man you can never really tell."

"You're married," he nodded, slightly disappointed. Then, with an ironic smile. "Well, I suppose that figures."

River nodded. "Wait until you see who I'm married to," she told him, a bemused smile playing at the corners of her mouth, "then you'll be feeling a whole lot more sorry for me than you're feeling for yourself right about now.'

Jack laughed. "You're husband's a handful, is he?"

"Now there's an understatement," River laughed, as well. Then, as if catching herself, she stopped abruptly and sighed. "He's one of those people who manage to find trouble around every corner and then some. He's a good man—one of the best, actually— but sometimes I just worry that his good intentions might lead to his downfall one day…"

She looked up at Jack as though she had been shocked out of a reverie. "Sorry," she told him apologetically, "I ramble on sometimes—"

"It's fine," Jack reassured her. He looked at River seriously. He had not missed the underlying hurt and worry in her eyes when she had spoken about her husband.

Jack had missed out on picking up a date tonight, but maybe truly helping someone was what he really needed to do.

"You know," he said, "I had this friend once who was the same as your husband. He was a legend, the kind people wrote songs about. He was just one of those people who would sacrifice himself at a moment's notice if it meant that he could save someone else's life."

Jack paused for a moment, remembering.

"I went to him one day and I asked him why he did what he did," He continued slowly, "I asked him how he could go on doing all those good deeds, when he knew that he might not always be able to save the day. When he knew that, some day, he might slip up, and that all that work would turn out to be a futile."

Jack smiled as he remembered the Doctor's answer. It had been such a long time ago, but out of all the things that the Doctor had ever told him it was still the thing that he remembered most clearly.

"You know what he told me?"

River marvelled at the wisdom in Jack's eyes. Amidst the cheesy pick-up lines and the handsome smiles, she only now noticed how _old_ the man really seemed.

"What?" she inquired, a low urgency in her voice, "What did he tell you?"

Jack smiled kindly, feeling sympathy for the woman who was so hopeless that she would seek comfort from the words of someone who she had just met.

"He said that it was better than doing nothing," he told her.

At this, River found herself at a loss for words. She abruptly realised that this was one of the first times that she had experienced such a sensation— and it had been brought on by a complete stranger. She stared off into the distance, nodding mutely at Jack's story.

That was probably the exact thing the Doctor would tell her if she asked him such a question. He would say that, at the end of the day, doing the right thing was their duty, no matter how dire the sacrifices that they had to make were.

At that moment, River felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the Doctor.

For a second time that night, River caught a brief glimpse of some private emotion in his eyes. The burden that this man bore on his shoulders seemed heavier each time she saw him. She wanted to lighten his load so badly, but she had no idea how.

"Sorry," he told her, burying the emotion underneath a wan smile, "I got a little—sidetracked."

Jack looked at the stranger who had joined their company. He didn't recognise the face, but something about the look in his eyes felt eerily familiar. Looking only at River, her husband hadn't seemed to notice Jack's presence yet.

"I've been waiting for an hour now!" River scolded crossly, falling into the old-married-couple routine comfortably, "And alone, too. If it weren't for Jack here, I would've been completely without company!"

Upon hearing the name, the man's head snapped up suddenly, all his attention now turned on Jack.

Jack didn't understand the emotion with which River's husband was looking at him. It was joy, hurt, pain and guilt all wrapped up into one facial expression. The man couldn't seem to meet Jack's gaze, either, and resigned himself to gazing into a far corner of the room, looking as though he desperately wanted to be swallowed up by the earth right there and then.

"Pleased to meet you," Jack said, extending an uncertain hand, "And you are?"

"Leaving," the man said abruptly, nodding towards River, "Come on, River. We're leaving!"

The man straightened the bow tie on his old-fashioned tuxedo awkwardly, shuffling his feet anxiously towards the exit of the bar. He looked like a skittish antelope in the process of being cornered by lions.

"I have to beg him for ages to take me to see the singing towers of Darillium and the moment we've seen them, we have to go straight back home. Really, Doctor!"

River sighed exasperatedly and gave Jack a knowing look before setting off after her husband.

As her final word struck Jack square in the chest, he could do nothing but stare after the two people as they exited the bar.


End file.
